(no subject)

[katallison]

HST's suicide leaves me feeling gut-punched. Oddly, not really *surprised*--I never saw him expiring peacefully in bed, or anything. But shocked, and kind of old and emptied out, and deeply sad.

Comments

Re: Rambling grief

[katallison.livejournal.com]

You know, my first thought when I heard the news (after the "ohmygod NO!") was "Shit. I was afraid of this." HST was (oddly) on my short mental list of people I was worried about in the wake of the election, which felt like the final crushing refutation of that odd romantic faith he'd somehow managed to sustain (amidst all his rage) about the essential nature of America. (I can't stand to go back and reread his piece written just before the election, in which he predicted a Kerry victory...)

I mean, I don't know. On reflection, I think that may have been a factor, but it was much likelier to have been about his realization that his body simply would no longer allow him to live the way he wanted. Even if he didn't have a terminal diagnosis of some sort, still I don't think the slow descent into infirmity and dependency is something he would've wanted to stick around for.

And the sentences. Yeah. I have to go re-buy all his books, dammit, because I lent them to various friends over the years and never got them back, and I want to reread them now.

Re: Rambling grief

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

See, if it's the latter, a decision not to live with infirmity, I can live with that. If it's him being crushed in the wake of the election by the final, real death knell of the 70s? I don't think I CAN live with that!! I want to know! Surely he can't have not left a NOTE??